Reflection

Sydney Austin

I’ve always been a lover of fairytales and literature, so when I had the opportunity to take English 351: Special Topics in Contemporary Literature, I took it. This class has taught me so much about myself and the tales I’ve adored since childhood. For that, I am very appreciative for my professor, Dr. Kate Lechler and my classmates. With the sappiness out of the way, I would really like to talk about my creative process and how I produced my final paper. There were four general topics that we could chose to develop a portfolio on throughout the semester: an adaptation analysis, a connecting tales analysis, a cultural variant analysis, or a creative adaptation. I’m not a very good creative writer, so that option was the first one crossed off the list. I felt like picking a couple of elements and then connecting stories would be difficult for me, mainly because I’m super indecisive. There was also the possibility that I would wind up making a strange connection between Cinderella’s glass slipper and the color of Rumpelstiltskin’s eyes. (Imagine the Disney fan theories on steroids.) Of course I was then stuck choosing between the adaptation analysis and the cultural variant analysis. Here’s my thing--- I love reading so much it’s slightly concerning (when I was younger and had a life, I read about 10 books a week). But I wanted to do more than reading a story and analyzing it. So, I chose to write about cultural variants instead. My decision was also affected by the fact that I’m a bit of a history nerd and I love learning about different cultures. This option was truly the best one for me. Choosing a fairytale to write about was even more difficult than choosing a general topic. I didn’t want to pick a fairytale that other people were going to write about because that’s no fun. Growing up, I seriously loved Thumbelina (maybe it’s because I’ve always been a short human; maybe because it’s because she turned into a fairy at the end, who knows), and I thought there was no way someone else would choose it—so I did. I chose five different tales and cultures: Thumbelina from Denmark, Tom Thumb from England, Little Chick-Pea from Italy, Little One Inch from Japan, and Doll in the Grass from Norway. My original plan was to distinguish what elements made each variant unique and how that reflected the culture. However, Dr. Kate and the peers that reviewed my paper, Courtney Jackson and Laneese Cosby, made it quite clear that I wasn’t hitting that point. In my initial draft, I had focused so much of my energy on making the stories known, that I barely analyzed any of the information. On top of that, Dr. Kate straight-up informed me that my thesis was weak, so back to the drawing board I went. I decided instead to focus on the periods that these tales were written in rather than on certain elements. So, I researched the literary movements of these time periods, then analyzed how that was reflected in the tales, and then compared them to one another. Because I changed the entire focus of my paper, it became more special to me. I really feel like I combined three of my passions in this paper. When searching for artwork, I was honestly just looking for a couple of images that would reflect one or two of the stories, but that’s not how it turned out. The images I’ve chosen reflect my favorite scenes in the stories. Thumbelina by H.J. Ford depicts when Thumbelina was kidnapped by the Toad. The image of Tom Thumb tangled in the spider web depicts Tom’s death scene. All of the images I’ve chosen depict either death, the character leaving, or the character gaining freedom. Also, as my paper progresses, the color of the images becomes more vibrant, which I felt like symbolizes my attempt to bring these tales to life. I really hope that my paper brings as much joy as it did while I was writing it. I put a lot of emotion, thought, and energy into this project; I hope that is reflected by my work. I feel like we should know about the different cultures and other tales that are a lot like the ones we grew up with. Fairytales connect people from Japan all the way to the tip of Alaska, and I hope that I made that evident. Thanks for visiting!

-Sydney Austin

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